{"id":1441,"date":"2023-02-23T13:45:00","date_gmt":"2023-02-23T13:45:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/marssadrine.org\/?p=1441"},"modified":"2025-05-12T04:31:59","modified_gmt":"2025-05-12T04:31:59","slug":"rio_tinto_spends_over_a_million_euros","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/marssadrine.org\/en\/rio_tinto_spends_over_a_million_euros\/","title":{"rendered":"Rio Tinto spends over 1M on land since mine cancellation"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Sasa Dragojlo<\/a> Belgrade<\/a> BIRN<\/a> February 23, 2023<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A BIRN investigation shows that Rio Tinto has spent more than a million euros on land in Serbia at the proposed site of a lithium mine that was eventually cancelled a year ago, while a redacted readout of a meeting with the EU makes clear the company\u2019s fear of a national referendum on the issue.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Since mid-2022, the year Serbia\u2019s government revoked licences for a $2.4 billion lithium mine, Anglo-Australian mining giant Rio Tinto has spent at least 1.2 million euros on land in the area that it hoped to exploit, BIRN can report, and is now offering financial aid to local firms in an apparent bid to win favour.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Faced with growing public opposition, the government called off the project in January last year, but critics speculated that the halt was only temporary, to avoid a voter backlash in elections that April.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But while Prime Minister Ana Brnabic stressed again in December that she sees no way back for the \u2018Jadar\u2019 project, the company itself says it has not \u201cgiven up\u201d and President Aleksandar Vucic is again mooting the possibility of a referendum. Opponents of the project face being beaten, he said on January 5.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYou never know \u2013 maybe they\u2019ll have that referendum, maybe next or the year after that, you never know, just to fulfill a promise, so they can see how they will fare,\u201d said Vucic, who as leader of the ruling Serbian Progressive Party is the most powerful political figure in the country.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A nationwide plebiscite, however, is precisely what Rio Tinto fears, according to a redacted readout \u2013 obtained by BIRN \u2013 of a meeting between company officials and the European Union delegation in Serbia on March 25 last year, two months after the project was officially cancelled.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rio Tinto: \u2018We haven\u2019t given up\u2019<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

With demand for electric vehicle batteries on the rise, Rio Tinto says the lithium mine in the area of Loznica, western Serbia, would be the biggest in Europe and make the company one of the top 10 lithium producers in the world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The project has strong backing<\/a> from the UK, Australia, United States, and the EU. The latter imports almost all of the lithium it uses but has ambitions to secure an entire supply chain of battery minerals and materials, with demand for lithium predicted to grow 18 times by 2030 and 60 times by 2050.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Serbia stands to benefit from some 2,100 construction jobs and an injection of roughly 200 million euros per year into the domestic supply chain, Rio says. Environmentalists, however, fear huge damage to water and land in western Serbia, while some Serbs say they feel steamrollered by the powerful multinational mining giant.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Facing an election in April 2022, the government scrapped the project in the January, but Rio Tinto has not gone away.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Between June 2022 and January 2023, the company has paid some 1.2 million euros for 5.78 hectares of land via seven separate contracts with residents in the proposed mining site, BIRN found by analysing and cross-matching data from state cadastral records.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Then in January, Rio Tinto announced a programme of to support sustainable local development in the Loznica area via financial grants for local enterprises.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The company has not hidden its ambition to revive what chief executive Jakob Stausholm called in December an \u201camazing asset.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe need to figure out how to go about it,\u201d Stausholm was quoted by Reuters as telling an investor briefing in Sydney. \u201cThe only thing I would say today is we haven\u2019t given up.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Asked about its continued land purchases, Rio Tinto told BIRN: \u201cThe purchase of the land is a continuation of the previously undertaken obligations of the Rio Sava company,\u201d referring to its local subsidiary.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Pressed for clarification of these \u201cobligations\u201d, the company did not respond.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Regarding its support for local businesses, Rio Tinto said it was part of the company\u2019s \u201ccommitment to the communities in which it operates\u201d and has nothing to do with any potential referendum.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rio Tinto reiterated that it still believes the Jadar project \u201chas the potential to be a world-class operation that could support the development of other future industries in Serbia, acting as a flywheel for tens of thousands of new jobs for current and future generations, and the sustainable production of materials that are key to the energy transition.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The environmental campaign group \u2018Mars sa Drine\u2019 [Get off the Drina], which opposes the Jadar project, said it had warned all along that the cancellation of the mine was a charade, but that its fate would ultimately be decided by the public.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cRio Tinto buys people off with offers of cash, and now, in a genius marketing move, they act like a humanitarian organization that invests in local crafts,\u201d Jovana Amidzic, a representative of the group, told BIRN. \u201cRio Tinto can stay on that land for 40 years, but there will be no mines.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nationwide referendum risks \u2018more complicated dynamic\u2019<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Reviving the project without some kind of referendum risks a major public backlash against Vucic\u2019s Progressives.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At a meeting with the EU delegation in Serbia on March 25 last year, Rio Tinto representatives appeared to be open to a local poll among villagers in the affected area, but not necessarily a wider plebiscite.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cA referendum could indicate the will of the inhabitants of the 12 villages of the area of Loznica, who according to the company would be the key players in the execution of the project, and those who would benefit the most,\u201d a redacted summary of the meeting reads. \u201cA local referendum would thus favour the company.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cA nationwide referendum including Belgrade, where the most negativity comes from, could produce a more complicated dynamic,\u201d the document adds.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

BIRN received the summary from an EU citizen who obtained it from the European Commission on the basis of a Freedom of Information request. BIRN obtained another copy of the document from another EU citizen, who had also submitted an FOI to the Commission, but in the second document the reference to Rio Tinto\u2019s misgivings about a national referendum was blacked out.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Commission shortly told BIRN that it was \u201ca clerical error\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n


\"\"
BIRN received the summary of the Rio Tinto\u2019s meeting with EU Delegation from an EU citizen who obtained it from the European Commission on the basis of a Freedom of Information request, which makes clear the company\u2019s fear of a national referendum on the issue.<\/small><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
BIRN obtained another copy of the document from another EU citizen, who had also submitted an FOI to the Commission, but in the second document the reference to Rio Tinto\u2019s misgivings about a national referendum was blacked out.<\/small><\/p>\n\n\n\n

In its response for this story, Rio Tinto did not comment directly on the possibility of a referendum, saying it was a matter for \u201cthe competent authorities\u201d in Serbia.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Amidzic of Mars sa Drine said that Rio Tinto\u2019s fear of a national referendum only underscored the strength of public resistance, even though the country\u2019s president and government were firmly behind the mine.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cEven with all the machinery of Vucic\u2019s rule over the media, the people\u2019s resistance is clear to them,\u201d Amidzic said, adding that regardless of whether the project is put to a referendum, it is already in violation of the law. \u201cThere are legal processes that have not been followed, and therefore we can see that this project cannot be realised according to legal regulations because it is catastrophic in terms of its impact on biodiversity, people\u2019s health, water, air and land\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Project aborted, but approval pending<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Calling off the project on January 20, 2022, Serbia\u2019s government terminated a decree concerning the spatial plan of the special purpose area for the Jadar project and, five days later, annulled a decision by the Ministry of Environmental Protection regarding the environmental impact study.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAll administrative acts related to Rio Tinto, i.e. Rio Sava, all permits, decisions, and everything else has been annulled,\u201d Brnabic declared in the wake of mass protests. \u201cWith this, as far as the Jadar and Rio Tinto project is concerned, everything is over.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, Rio Tinto\u2019s request for the approval of the exploitation field, submitted on January 6, 2021, is still pending, Ministry of Mining confirmed to Mars sa Drine organization.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

BIRN asked the Ministry of Mining why the request is still officially under consideration if the project has already been aborted, but did not receive a reply by the time of publication.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In November last year, the government also signed declarations of intent with Slovakian battery maker InoBat to build an electric vehicle battery factory in Serbia, Reuters reported. Rio Tinto is an investor in InoBat.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Activists and the opposition say this all points to a likely revival of the Jadar project.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Meanwhile, a proposal to ban the mining of lithium and boron in Serbia, signed by more than 38,000 people and submitted to parliament last year, has still to come before the competent committee of ministry, despite rules that it should do so within 30 days.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Radomir Lazovic, an MP of the opposition Green-Left Coalition, said the so-called \u2018People\u2019s Initiative\u2019 was being kept from lawmakers on someone\u2019s orders.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAt every session and at every opportunity I asked what\u2019s happening with the People\u2019s Initiative,\u201d Lazovic told BIRN.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI managed to get answers from the Ministry of State Administration and Local Self-Government, and now the answer has arrived from the Committee for Constitutional Affairs and Legislation that this document never reached them, which can only mean one thing \u2013 that someone deliberately removed it from the regular procedure.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

BIRN sent inquiries to the Serbian president\u2019s office and the Serbian government about the Rio Tinto lithium project, but received no response by the time of publication.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sasa Dragojlo Belgrade BIRN February 23, 2023 A BIRN investigation shows that Rio Tinto has spent more than a million euros on land in Serbia at the proposed site of a lithium mine that was eventually cancelled a year ago, while a redacted readout of a meeting with the EU makes clear the company\u2019s fear […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2059,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[58,79,55],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-1441","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-info-and-news-en","8":"category-general-information","9":"category-foreign-media"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/marssadrine.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1441","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/marssadrine.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/marssadrine.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marssadrine.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marssadrine.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1441"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/marssadrine.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1441\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1621,"href":"https:\/\/marssadrine.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1441\/revisions\/1621"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marssadrine.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2059"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/marssadrine.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1441"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marssadrine.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1441"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marssadrine.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1441"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}